Friday, April 25, 2014

I’ve been following the recent controversy over Cliven
Bundy, and there is one politician in particular who has completely unimpressed
me, and it’s hardly the first time:
Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin.

Speaker Tobin just two weeks ago issued a strong statement of support for
Bundy, a deadbeat rancher who has not paid grazing fees for twenty years, in
his standoff with the BLM. He left no
doubt that he supported Bundy, in the
process working hard to appeal to the militia extremists who advocate armed
resistance to the federal government.

But the past two days, Bundy’s racist comments have drawn a
lot of criticism, and across the political spectrum. As has been widely reported, Bundy, who
apparently has been enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame so much that he’s
attempted to drag it out with daily news conferences since the standoff ended, finally
revealed himself during one of them when he said that blacks (who he referred
to by the obsolete and offensive name, ‘negroes’) should be ‘picking cotton’
and were better off as slaves because then they had a ‘family life’ (well if you consider being selectively bred
with whoever the slaveowner decided, or having yourself or members of your
family sold out from under you ‘family life,’ I guess. ) And Bundy, when asked
to clarify his remarks, instead doubled down on them, when he repeated essentially the
same quotes as what he thinks about
when he drives by houses with open doors in Las Vegas. Since he said the same thing twice, it is clearly no minor slip of the tongue, but rather it is who he is.

So what did Speaker Tobin do? Did he condemn Bundy’s remarks or try to distance
himself from them?

No, he did not. In fact, he has said
nothing. CONSIDER, that even right wing flamethrowers Glenn Beck and Sean
Hannity condemned Bundy’s remarks over the past couple of days on their
shows! It speaks volumes about Tobin’s
lack of either judgment or decency when he has to be schooled by Glenn Beck and
Sean Hannity about why what Bundy said is offensive and wrong!

So is this the only time Tobin has exhibited poor judgement and then instead of
condemning what ought to be condemned, just clammed up and tried to fade into
the background (despite being one of the most powerful politicians in the
state) and hope nobody will notice his silence?

Sadly, no. Recently Andy Tobin brought
SB 1062 to the floor of the House for a vote, and supported it. SB 1062 you may recall, was the divisive bill that would have allowed businesses to discriminate
against anyone they saw fit to discriminate against by claiming a ‘religious
exemption’ to both state and federal anti-discrimination laws. In practice, this
law would have allowed businesses to discriminate in particular against gay
couples. Again, Andy Tobin didn’t see
why this was a bad thing. First, he brought it to the floor of the house. Then he voted for the bill.

Of course SB 1062 immediately engendered a torrent of criticism, not only from
those targeted by the bill, but by many others and in particular the business
community. Businesses in Arizona
remembered very well the damage to the economy and reputation of the state from
SB 1070 several years ago and did not want a repeat (especially with the
obvious economic target and a threat by the NFL to move the Super Bowl next
year out of Arizona.) Three members of the legislature admitted that they had
made a mistake in supporting the bill and urged Governor Brewer to veto it,
which she did.

Andy Tobin, however? Nowhere to be found. He said nothing about SB 1062 when it
became controversial, either supporting his own vote, or joining the members
who said their votes had been a mistake.
He was quiet as a mouse.

This willingness to take the most extreme positions and then say nothing when
others who have taken them get into trouble would be bad enough in a Speaker (a
position that exerts leadership.) But
now Tobin wants to go to Washington. No,
he is not running for Congress in his district. Tobin is a resident of CD-4,
but he has decided to run in a district he does not live in, CD-1. Of course carpetbagging is nothing new to
Republicans in the district; For years rural Arizona was represented by Rick
Renzi, a Virginia resident who bought (but
only stayed in during infrequent campaign trips) a home in Flagstaff. Renzi
was later convicted of a number of felonies and sentenced to three years in
prison, but it hasn’t stopped the GOP from nominating Phoenix resident who
owned land in Munds Park Sydney Hay and Tucson resident who moved to Marana Jonathan
Paton in previous years. I guess they think to represent rural northeastern
Arizona you don’t actually have to live
in rural northeastern Arizona.

This relates to the Bundy situation as well, I might add. I know a number of
cattle ranchers. They certainly do have their issues at times with the federal government, but all of them pay the
grazing fee. Mr. Bundy is nothing but a deadbeat who does not pay his taxes,
and most ranchers do appreciate that. But apparently living in the more urban
enclave of Prescott, Tobin doesn’t realize this. He might if he lived in the
real CD-1.

It gets worse though. As a candidate for
Congress, Tobin was asked about the Paul Ryan budget that a lot of Republicans
in Congress are on record as supporting. The budget makes big changes and ultimately
big cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, trying in particular to replace Medicare with
a privatized system of partially subsidized health care, where the government would
help seniors pay part of the cost of private insurance from an exchange.

Yeah, I know. If you follow GOP
Congressional logic, private exchanges with partial government subsidies are
better than Medicare. But, private exchanges with partial
government subsidies (the heart of the Affordable Care Act) are worse than
having no insurance. So put those
together and you have to wonder how long it will be before they just say that having no insurance is better than Medicare.

I suppose you might argue that he’s a politician and politicians are always cagey. But that is not so. Ann Kirkpatrick, the
congresswoman Tobin seeks to replace, has been quite clear that she opposes the
Ryan budget. Further, she also took on a President of her own party when she
said she would oppose any cuts to the Medicare Advantage program, which helps seniors who need or want it to
purchase higher quality medical insurance than just what they would get
directly from Medicare. Based on his
failures so far to take a position when things get tough, are you optimistic
that Andy Tobin would have the backbone to confront his own President or house
leadership if his own President or house leadership was wrong? That’s why we need Ann back—she’s not afraid
to make the tough call and reach across the aisle sometimes if she sees it’s in
the best interest of CD-1.

Maybe the most telling example of why Andy Tobin is unfit to lead the district
is found in the
budget he helped negotiate . It does two
things that harm rural counties a lot. The first is to include a tax cut that
takes money away from counties. We know
that counties are already understaffed. As
I alluded to in my blog post about serving on a Grand Jury, some of the court cases we got were years old.
Hard to see how laying off more people will make that kind of backlog anything
besides worse. The second is to
CUT funds from rural highways and divert them to urban districts. So much for somebody who seeks to represent
you. He apparently doesn’t know how bad some of the highways here can get, or
doesn’t care. Do you really want a CONGRESSMAN who shows a similar disregard
for the needs of a district he doesn’t live in?